According to the Supervisory Board Chair, a New Teleradio-Moldova Executive Director Could Be Elected in About Two Months Time

The Regulation on the contest for the appointment of the Executive Director of Public Institution Teleradio-Moldova Company may be approved in September 2019, and the Executive Director of the national media service provider may be elected in two months time. The Chair of the Teleradio-Moldova Supervisory Board (SB), Nicolae Spataru, told Media-azi.md about this. "We are currently developing the Regulation. Its approval is possible to happen at the beginning of September and the contest for the election of the Executive Director of the company is to start from the moment this Regulation is published in the Official Gazette", Nicolae Spataru stated.

According to Nicolae Spataru, certain members of the SB believed that the contest for the appointment of the Executive Director should last two weeks, as provided for by the old law, while others thought that it should last one month so that all those interested could participate. "We will see which option will be chosen. Then we will have two weeks to validate the files, and the contest should take place no later than two weeks after the validation of the files, as required by the Regulation. The whole procedure should not take longer than two months", the Chair of the Supervisory Board concluded.

In August, at the request of the Parliamentary Committee for Culture, Education, Research, Youth and Mass-Media, the launching of the contest for the election of Teleradio-Moldova Executive Director was included on SB agenda. The notice issued by the Parliament to the SB mentioned that the contest for the appointment of the Executive Director of Teleradio-Moldova national media service provider shall be organised no later than six months since the law enters into force. This Code entered into force as of 1 January 2019, hence the SB is lagging behind with the contest.

During its public meeting held on 29 July, the Broadcasting Council voted for the proposal to dismiss all members of the Supervisory Board (SB) of Teleradio-Moldova NPAI. BC found that SB did not comply with the legal requirements on organising a contest for appointing an Executive Director of NPAI Teleradio-Moldova within six months from the enactment date of the Broadcasting Code.

According to the law, the Executive Director of Teleradio-Moldova PI shall be appointed by public contest by the Supervisory Board. The Executive Director shall be appointed by the Supervisory Board for a seven-year term, which cannot be renewed, and shall be empowered to manage the national public provider. The Executive Director may be dismissed by at least 2/3 of the total members of the Supervisory Board.
Note that in July 2019, the MPs of the Parliamentary Committee for Mass-media demanded that the current Chair of Teleradio-Moldova – Olga Bordeianu, the Director of Moldova 1 – Ecaterina Stratan and the Chair of the Supervisory Board – Nicolae Spataru be dismissed. According to the Committee members, Olga Bordeianu and Ecaterina Stratan ineffectively managed the public money, and would have turned the public station into a party television, while Olga Bordeianu would have committed a number violations when hiring and firing employees. The management of Teleradio-Moldova negated the allegations of the MPs and refused to resign.